Well, for that the shingles should do what a solar panel does best – turn the sun into free electricity.

In the end these Solar Roof Shingles are nothing else than Solar Cells in roof tile format, designed to look like a conventional tile.

In 2005 the first solar roof shingles (aka as Solar Panel Shingles or Solar Roof Shingles)entered the market, for 2020 one of the manufacturers, Dow Chemical, estimates $10 billion revenue.

So we will see them more and more often…very soon.

As with normal Solar Panels, you will still need to change the produced DC current into AC, using an inverter.

Since you probably also want electricity at night, when there is no solar radiation, we need to store the days harvest.

The easiest way is to charge batteries during the day. especially if you want to go off grid.

But how do you like this idea: You start producing your own energy, but – if your country has a program that forces your utility company to buy the electricity from you – save on the batteries (lots of problems and costs).

You stay connected to the grid and use the grid as your storage. You sell them the electricity you produce (or better your photovoltaic shingles) and let the meter run backwards.

At night, you will buy some of the electricity back to power your TV, but if you produced enough electricity at daytime (depending where you live and especially how big your photovoltaic shingles are dimensioned), your electricity meter will still be lower the next morning than on the morning the day before.

Good idea?

Oh…and since I expect electricity (it’s a commodity, like oil or gold) to go through the roof? Then you should really go off grid, since buying back at night will be unaffordable.